“Won’t they find you?”
“No. The doings are simultaneous and overlapping, all over the country. It’ll look like an itinerary, but at any given time I could be anyplace or on the way. If I get the chance, I’ll call once in a while at the right time from the right place. If I do, we’ll talk about nothing. No code words, no clever tip-offs you make up on the spot.”
“But what if—”
“What if nothing. The people they’ll have monitoring our phones decipher telephone codes for a living. We’re no match for them.” As they passed an intersection, Jane looked away from Carey. “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said. “They’re looking for us.”
“How do you know?”
“I just saw two police cars on parallel streets, like a grid search. I was hoping the two we left at the office would be dumb enough to sit tight for a few more minutes.” She paused for a moment, then said, “We don’t have much time, so I’d better say this now.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Afraid so,” she said. “It’s unlikely that this whole thing is going to end well. The only hope Dahlman has—or we have, either—is if we can keep him from going to trial until the evidence isn’t all against him. All we have going for us is—”
“You,” he interrupted. “We have you. Or I do, anyway.”
“Very sweet,” she said. “I love stupidity in a man. The time could come when the situation gets to be impossible—you lose track of me, or Dahlman ends up dead, or the police show signs that they’re ready to put you away. At that point what I want you to do is this: go to Jake’s house without letting anyone follow you. I’ll leave a packet with him. It will have identification for both of us, passports, a lot of cash, and things like that. There will be an address in the packet. Go there and wait for me.”
“What if you don’t show up? You know how flighty and unreliable women are. How long should I wait?”
“If I’m alive, I’ll be there. If I’m dead, what will I care? You have my permission to fly to the Middle East and start recruiting a harem.”
“Hmmm,” he said. “Something to consider.”
“Of course, you’d be wise to make sure I’m really dead.”
“I’ll wait at least an hour before I get started. By the way, how in the world am I going to get anywhere if the police are about to arrest me?”
“I’m not sure if I should tell you. But I will as soon as I’ve gotten a better look at who’s doing the watching.”
“Jane?”
“No, I won’t give you advice on how to find the women. Find your own women.”
“I’m being serious.”
“All right.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure you know that, but I have to say it anyway. If I had known what was going to happen— that this was going to destroy our lives—I would never have gotten you into it.” He looked at her sadly. “I’m sure you know that, too.”
She shrugged. “There’s always more than one way to look at it. If we hadn’t done this, you would have found Dahlman murdered in his hospital bed. That’s not speculation—I saw the two men on their way to do it. Then we would have had to try to live with the knowledge that a man you admired and owed a big debt came to us for help, but you refused because you wanted to keep your nice, safe life. Could you do it? Could I? It wouldn’t have killed us, but that wasn’t the person I wanted to marry. I wanted to give myself to a big, strapping, manly blockhead who could be counted on to sacrifice himself to my every whim. But if you wouldn’t for Dahlman, you wouldn’t for me either. This sort of behavior is what I wanted, I guess. So I deserve it.”
“Thanks,” said Carey. “I knew I could find comfort in there somewhere.”
“Where?”
“ ‘Manly.’ It has a positive, endearing connotation, and definite sexual overtones.”
“It does not.”
“Oh?” said Carey. “It certainly does. Try the reversal test. What if I were describing you and used the word ‘womanly’?”
She thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, you got me. I must have been thinking about you in shameful, lustful ways. Pull over there at the curb.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“You’re a prude all of a sudden?” She laughed. “No, but I’d like to drive. This is probably the last time when there can’t possibly be anybody spying on us or eavesdropping. If they happened to spot us on the way to the hotel I picked out, I would be a very disappointed girl.”
16
Marshall sat behind the cashier’s counter of the little gas station on a chair that must have been purchased in the sixties. The burlap-colored upholstery had a texture like military webbing, and six cigarette burns that were becoming familiar to him. The chrome on the frame had worn thin and begun to show rust specks. He said, “So you were sitting right where I am now?”
Dale Honecker said, “Yes sir,” and nodded his head emphatically. “I heard a car, so I stood up to look.”
“What could you see from here?”
“The old guy, and a woman driving. She gets out—”
“Wait,” said Marshall. “She gets out. Which side?”
“This side. He’s on the other side.” Marshall thought about it. The gas cap on a Toyota Camry was on the left side, so she should have been on the other side of the pumps, where she wouldn’t have to drag the hose across the car to fill it.
“Are you sure?”
“Uh … yes.” So she was trying to keep the passenger away from the gas station, where the boy couldn’t see him, thought Marshall.
“Then what?”
“Then she gets out, walks in, hands me a twenty, and says she’s going to fill it.”
“Describe her,” said Marshall.
“Long, dark hair …”
“How old?”
“I don’t know. Maybe twenty-five. Thin, pretty.”
“Eye color?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I … I don’t understand.”
“It’s very late at night. A car pulls up. You probably haven’t seen many cars since around midnight. You look out the window. Why?”
“Because you get kind of jumpy sitting here alone in this lighted room all night. When somebody pulls in, I take a look to see if they look like they might rob me.”
“Good. So what did you think when you saw this car?”
“I guess I felt kind of relieved. An old guy and this woman probably aren’t about to stick me up.”
“It’s kind of an odd combination, though, isn’t it? You didn’t recognize Dahlman right away, did you?”
“No.”
“So you had to think they were something else, right?”
“I guess so.” Then he amended it. “I didn’t really think.”
“You’re a night cashier in a self-service station,” said Marshall. “When I used to work dull night shifts, and somebody came in, I used to play a little game, and sort of make up stories about them. You’ve got an old guy who
